Archive for the ‘Economy’ Category

According to the English Retail Research centre (as published by English Times November ), irish employee’s are rated the most light fingered in Europe. The centre estimates that nearly 40% of all missing goods are taken by employee’s. The english are know for their honesty i’m sure.

Ireland however is ranked only in actual shoplifting, you can find out who took that record here- World News. It’s good that we didn’t come first for that as well !! The poor state of the economy as well as low wages and the general malaise if politicians and solicitors can do it so can we mentality.

Don’t think it is good for the country to have a record like that, it could effect investment by foreign companies, employment and so on.

Do you think this report is justified are other nations more honest than the Irish or the Irish dishonest ??

I see that Ryanair has cut its services at Shannon, just about two weeks after their ridiculous offer for Aer Lingus was thrown out. Fancy this they put in a offer for a company with at least €760 m in the bank ( +42 planes and buildings worth another €916m according to the Sunday Business Post) and landing/take-off slots at Heathrow airport ( which are nearly impossible to get) of €748 m !!! I mean Micheal O’ Leary wanted a bargain there, less than half price !! I am not a fan of Aer lingus but Ryanair wanted the “Sale of the century” just to suit them. Good thing it didn’t happen.

The economic outlook continues to look bleak, in fact its nearly as bad as the weather almost. With Dell’s plant in Limerick facing likely closure in the new year (talk of up to 10,000 jobs lost including suppliers and contractors) and Aer Lingus shedding 1,500 jobs in an effort to “yellow pack” the workforce. They are going to be tough times ahead for any job seekers.

The possible closure of Dell in Limerick will come as a huge blow to Limerick and the surrounding area’s but the writing has been on the wall for some time especially with the building of a new factory in Poland. In recent months it has been circulated that Dell wants to pull out of manufacturing altogether and get sub-contractors to build their computers for them.

What are people going to do ? A possible consideration would be a worker’s co-op, I think would be a idea rather than lay down and die kind of stuff. Jobs in computer assembly will be hard to come by, as it is all gone to low wage economies in the far east like China, Taiwan etc… If the workers got together and maybe some backing from the IDA/Shannon Development it might be worth a go.

Now for Aer Lingus, this airline was privatised with the state selling 75% of the airline and then giving the money raised to the company ( over €1 billion ) to buy airplanes or something like that. Well I haven’t seen Aer Lingus get new planes or even order them for that matter. One of the first actions it did after privatisation was pull the Heathrow slots out of Shannon despite making a profit on the route while leasing some of its slots at Heathrow to other airlines. Don’t think Aer Lingus made many friends for itself with that action. The management of the company seem to be doing their best to provoke the workers into industrial action either to break the unions or wind up the company or whatever. Anyway I believe it is time we got our €1 billion back.